Search This Blog

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Well! I checked out THIS AIN'T STAR TREK XXX and was quite pleasantly surprised for a number of reasons.

Porn parodies have been around since Day One and the majority of them expend little effort in doing anything with what they’re allegedly spoofing other than coming up with a title along the lines of HANNAH DOES HER SISTERS or SHINDLER’S FIST, and once the giggling over such titles has subsided, all viewers are left with is the uninspired uglies-to-uglies wrasslin’ that wouldn’t pass muster even during one’s teenage years. (Well, maybe during one’s more desperate teenage years, but you know what I mean.) Thankfully, THIS AIN’T STAR TREK XXX was made by a batch of pornsters who wear their love of old school STAR TREK on their sleeves (especially screenwriter “Roger Krypton”) and while it’s technically a parody, it’s played totally straight and is therefore quite funny when the humping isn’t in progress (and, if truth be told, sometimes even when it is). In fact, other than featuring different actors and some seriously hardcore sex, this DVD has the look and feel of old school STAR TREK down pat, with the sets, costumes and sound effects being as on the money as the budget would allow (it looks only slightly cheaper than TOS).

The plot — yes, there actually is one — is basically a re-do of “Space Seed,” the TV episode that introduced Ricardo Montalban’s arch villain Khan to the Trek canon, so if you’ve seen that story you know what you’re in for. Once more the Enterprise (which is never seen in an exterior shot) finds the “sleeper” ship Botany Bay and awakens the megalomaniacal Khan, thus setting in motion the conflict between the alpha male histrionics of Khan and Captain Kirk. Khan’s eugenics-derived super-human abilities are more or less forgotten here because, let’s face it, this is still a porno movie, and we’re here to see people in STAR TREK outfits get their hump on and not necessarily fully reenact a TV episode we’ve all seen a million times. The Trek-oriented sexual set-tos involve the following:

Spock (British pork swordsman Tony DeSergio) initiates “assimilation protocol” with one of two unfrozen female aliens aboard the Botany Bay. The first alien girl — also apparently her name — is played by the all-natural and very frisky Jenna Haze, Adult Video News’ 2009 Performer of the Year, and if her performance here is any indication of what’s she’s capable of, she certainly earned that accolade with flying colors. Her character states that she was "dipped in Venus juice at birth," which aids in her sole purpose for existing, namely to please men (thus making her, as she herself puts it, "the most popular female on the ship"). As a rule I usually hate blowjob sequences, but this fuck scene gets things rolling when Haze gives Spock the most impressive beejay I've ever witnessed, a virtuoso bit of fellatio intended to get the stoic Vulcan to break character and show some emotion. Seriously, it was truly a thing of beauty. Oh, and Haze’s costume is a different-colored semi-ringer for the one worn by Roger Korby’s android Andrea in the Original Series episode “What Are Little Girls made Of?”

Jenna Haze as "Alien Girl," the character who made this one an instant classic.

Next we get Nick Manning as Khan lording it ultra-macho-style over the delectable Aurora Snow as eventual turncoat Marla McGivers (a character also found in the original story, only now her deeply-dicked motivation for betraying the Enterprise being made explicit as opposed to implicit). How Manning kept up not only a straight face but also a completely insane grimace throughout is something to be pondered, and he’s a riot, while Snow is a delight to the eyes.

When Kirk (an amusingly Shatneresque Evan Stone) gets the spotlight, he’s matched with Sasha Grey as a mouthwatering Vulcan in an outfit that would have been right at home on TOS.(R.I.P., Bill Theiss.) She's the other female from the Botany bay and she's there to warn Kirk of Khan's true intentions, but luckily for him (and us), before she can impart her info the Vulcan lady mentions that she is afflicted with Pon Farr, and if you know your Vulcan xenobiology, you know what that means… Being the selfless guy that he is, Kirk administers the cure for the “blood fever” right there on the transporter platform, an heroic act that made me wonder what happened to the transporter operator during the inter-species horizontal mambo. Next to T’Pol from ENTERPRISE, Grey is simply the hottest Vulcan ever seen, and I thank her for that bit of “fan service,” as the Japanese call it.

Sasha Grey as perhaps the most visually enchanting Vulcan yet to hit the screen.

Meanwhile in sickbay, Dr. McCoy (Cheyne Collins) and Nurse Chapel (Codi Carmichael) must ward off the potentially fatal effects of an airborne pathogen released by Khan, and the only way to counter its effects is by unleashing certain endorphins… You do the math.

Evan Stone as Captain Kirk, afflicted and in need of a cure...

Following that bit of business, Kirk finds himself afflicted with the pathogen (allowing Evan Stone to really let loose with the outright Shatnerism) and takes the good doctor’s advice as to the cure, engaging in an on-the-bridge threesome with Spock and Lt. Uhura (Jada Fire, whose brief bits of dialogue were wisely dubbed, if the behind the scenes footage is any indication of her verbal delivery). And before you K/S freaks out there get too lathered up, Kirk and Spock do not do each other, but a shared-orifice DP is about as close as it gets to that. (I guess you’ll have to wait for the all-male parody to scratch that itch.) This scene is by far the least inspired and most perfunctory of the lot, and for those of you who hate “facials,” the two-man pecker snot bombardment seen at the end of this sequence is especially nasty thanks to the pearlescent aspect of the guys’ semen starkly contrasting with Uhura’s very dark complexion, really driving home how much taking a load directly in the face can make one look just like a seriously-melted candle. (BTW, neither Spock nor Uhura were affected by the pathogen, but how often does one get to make the beast with three backs on the bridge of the USS Enterprise?)

The semi-faithful low-budget remaking of “Space Seed” is utterly beside the point since there are virtually no other actors on hand other than the main cast — there’s no Chekov and both Sulu and Scotty have little more than walk-on parts — so Khan’s lack of a sizable force of supermen and the conspicuous absence of a visible Enterprise crew component would have rendered the plot moot anyway, so we just have to content ourselves with what amounts to a feature-length pornographic cosplay movie. And I, for one, have no problem with that.

THIS AIN’T STAR TREK XXX is very entertaining as contemporary porn flicks go, especially for Trek geeks, and the second disc even includes a sex-free version of the film should you for some reason choose to watch it. Also included on the second disc is an entertaining “Making of” documentary that takes us on a comprehensive tour behind the scenes, complete with cast interviews, a look at the costuming and makeup effects (most notably the Vulcanizing of Sasha Grey, who’s quite pixie-like and dainty when seen out of context of the feature), and plenty of amusing backstage buffoonery. Evan Stone’s David Lee Roth-ish words of warning to men who would enter the porn biz and thereby threaten his own work are hilarious, especially his statements that he and Tony DeSergio would tell the poor bastard in question to show up for a location shoot at some place that doesn’t exist, or that he’d make sure the guy was forced “to work with one of those girls who really, really hates guys, a serious lesbian who’s only in it for the money and will totally take it out on you. Why? Because you’re the new guy!”

The famous Vulcan salute: actually a secret shout-out to those of us who like to "get a taste?"

And while the behind the scenes documentary is fun enough, Jenna Haze gained my undying appreciation for the following quick-witted and funny observation, delivered from the captain's chair:

(Haze makes the Vulcan salute) "It's like a little pussy-eating thing, that's what it is. It's not the Vulcan salute; it's like (sticks tongue between splayed salute fingers) inter-galactic pussy-eating, right? That's what he really meant with that! He doesn't show emotion 'cause he's always buried between somebody's legs. Spock's really a secret pussy-eater, I bet..."

After which she supplements that brilliant observation by confessing to being a geek, but not for Trek, instead preferring Star Wars, video games and werewolf and vampire novels. Gotta love her!

Bottom line, THIS AIN'T STAR TREK XXX is way more fun than it has any right to be, so if you're both a Trek goon and porn-friendly, you should definitely TRUST YER BUNCHE and check this out. I believe a parody this close to the source material is considered "fair use" but I would not be at all surprised if Hustler could only get away with this once, so enjoy this while you can.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

If ever there were a franchise that sorely needed a reboot, it was STAR TREK, and I'm glad to see that in enacting the reboot the filmmakers chose to start over at the beginning, with the original crew of characters and a slightly altered timeline. That's all I'll divulge about the overall plot, but I enjoyed it very much and would rank STAR TREK right next to THE WRATH OF KHAN as the best in the series. I say that as a person who grew up on the old school cast and prefers The Original Series (or TOS if you prefer) over all subsequent TREK entries, so make of that what you will. I can't guarantee that it will please the inflexible purists out there whom I know (I'm betting cash that both Scooter and Peter the Red will find endless fault with it), but take it from me that this is in every way the correct way to handle a TREK relaunch. As for the particulars:

The actors do a damned good job of giving us the Enterprise crew we know and have taken to heart, and I'll eat my own buttocks on live television if Karl Urban isn't channeling the late De Forest Kelley.

I thought I would hate Zoe Saldana as Uhura. I was wrong. I always loved the original for being an indelible part of the bridge crew (to say nothing of her being one of the hottest women in TV history, as well as the first hot black chick on the tube) but back in the days Uhura amounted to little more than an inter-galactic switchboard operator, so seeing her reinterpreted for an audience that comes forty-some-odd years after her creation was definitely something that had to be done and it is done quite well here, although I would have given her an African accent, but that's just me and it's a very minor quibble. (I know the original Uhura didn't rock an accent but she was supposed to be African and occasionally spoke Swahili, admittedly sans accent; now sounds like she just strolled in from a mall shopping spree somewhere in California and no mention is made of her place of origin, so for all we know she could be from Van Nuys.)

I love the new Chekov (Anton Yelchin). Yes, I just admitted that in a worldwide public forum.

I'm still not down with the Enterprise's new look, but then again I didn't care for its re-design in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979) and that design not only eventually grew on me, but I now consider it a classic for many reasons. So who knows what the future will bring? (No pun intended.)

Simon Pegg as Scotty. I wouldn't have thought to cast him, but he acquits himself quite well.

For me the bit of casting I dreaded most was Chris Pine as James T. Kirk. Simply put, how the fuck do you even think of getting someone to step into the unique characterization William Shatner brought to the table? For all of Shatner's over-the-top acting, Kirk would not be remembered at all if not for Bill giving him a sense of lovable fratboyish assholism, and it would have been dangerously easy for an actor stepping into the role to turn it into inadvertent parody. Pine takes some of the Shatnerian traits that made Kirk legendary while reigning in the Shat's (in)famous thespic stylings, allowing Kirk to be seen as a somewhat realistically acted character. I think he did a great job and I look forward to seeing how his portrayal evolves.

I was far less concerned about Zachary Quinto stepping into the Spock ears and bangs, but he was superb and the script addressed my favorite aspect of Spock's character, namely the seething rage within him that grew throughout his life as a mixed-race outsider on his homeworld. I can never get enough of the character and I can't wait to see more of Quinto's take on him.

Giving away nothing, we even get a tasty and fleshy Orion woman, aka that epitome of the classic STAR TREK alien babe, "the green chick," so I was a very happy camper.

Rachel Nichols as the all-too-briefly-seen Gaila, proudly representing for green chicks throughout the galaxy.

Anyway, the bottom line is that it's fun, so TRUST YER BUNCHE and boldly haul your ass to STAR TREK this weekend. And if you don't feel like combating the opening-weekend hordes you'll miss nothing by waiting a few days; if you know old school TREK you know what this is all about, but it's a blast seeing the series get exactly the shot in the arm it's needed for well over a decade.